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Editorial

Punishment is deserved

District officials should stand firm against lawsuit by fired principals

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Sunday March 23, 2014 7:31 AM

The Columbus Board of Education showed the necessary resolve Tuesday night in a unanimous vote
to fire two high-school principals implicated in the data-rigging scandal.

The two, Tiffany L. Chavers of Linden-McKinley STEM Academy and Pamela Diggs of Marion-Franklin,
have vowed to contest their firing administratively and have sued to get their jobs back. The board
should defend its action agressively on both fronts.

Moreover, district officials should continue to root out other culpable employees who haven’t
been held accountable.

The principals were fired because the extensive investigation of the data manipulation found
that they were among the administrators who changed the most grades and who directed employees to
make the greatest number of wholesale fraudulent changes to attendance records. The changes made
schools’ performance look better by allowing kids to graduate despite failing, making the rate of
attendance look better, and removing kids with poor attendance and low test scores from the
tally.

Records show Diggs changed 186 grades in one year alone, and her school saw 31,079 absences
deleted and 43 students declared “withdrawn” at the end of the year, even though they hadn’t left.
They show that Chavers changed 37 grades in one year, and that Linden-McKinley had 36,063 absences
deleted and 64 students retroactively withdrawn.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the school board, former and current superintendents and
others, the two principals blame administrators above them and assert that they shouldn’t be fired,
because they were just following orders and because plenty of others who did the same things haven’t
been fired.

They said they were made to understand that they would lose their jobs if they didn’t comply
with the instructions of former data czar Steve Tankovich, who is accused of masterminding the
cheating scheme.

But basic ethics, especially for someone in leadership, demanded that the principals stand up to
those ordering them to cheat. There were district employees who demonstrated integrity in the face
of the cheating. These include internal auditor Carolyn Smith, administrator Elaine Bell and
social-work supervisor Katie Huenke, all of whom raised objections.

The fired principals join others implicated in the scandal who have claimed that, because their
bosses told them it was OK, they didn’t know it was wrong. Said Diggs at a press conference called
to announce the lawsuit, “If I was doing something wrong, why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Diggs can't possibly believe that falsifying records is right.

A lot of Columbus City Schools employees appear to have been in the wrong profession, based on
how many were found to have taken part in the records-tampering. The firing of Chavers and Diggs,
along with the resignations of two other high-school principals implicated, brings to 18 the number
who have resigned, retired or been fired as a result of the investigation.

Superintendent Dan Good, who came into this mess at the height of the investigation, has played
an instrumental role in ridding the district of those who perpetrated the cheating. He should keep
at it until the job is done. If there really are more guilty parties, then Chavers and Diggs are
right about one thing: They shouldn’t be the only ones fired.